Drinking straws are typically shipped to a restaurant in boxes formed of thin cardboard that each contain perhaps 100 to 200 straws each. At the restaurant, a clerk removes the straws from the box and places the straws in a dispensing machine which dispenses one straw at a time. If the shipping container could also be used as the dispensing machine, without substantial additional cost for the cardboard shipping container, clerks could save time which is otherwise used in transferring straws to the dispensing container and keeping the dispensing container clean.